HISTORICAL ADDRESS 



AT THE 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



BY 



WILLIAM B. REED. 



1838. 



i 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE PHILOMATHEAN SOCIETY 



OF THE 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 



Thursday, November 1st, a. d. 1838, 



BY 

WILLIAM B. REfcD. 



PRINTED BY T. K. & P. G. COLLINS, 

No. 1 LODGE ALLEY. 



1838. 



-97 

2, 



H 5^ 



Friday Evening, Nov. 2, 1838. 
Sir, 

The Philomathean Society has conferred upon us the 
agreeable duty of communicating to you the following extract 
from the minutes of a meeting held on Friday evening, Nov 2d. 
Resolved, " That the thanks of this Society be presented to 
William B. Reed, Esq., for the elegant and appropriate address 
delivered before us on Thursday evening, Nov. 1st, and that a 
copy be requested for publication." 

. Yours, very respectfully, 
I. W. BIDDLE, 
E. C. WATMOUGH, 
E. A. THOURON, 
HENRY E. MONTGOMERY, 

Committee. 
To William B. Reed, Esq. 



Philadelphia, Nov. 3, 183S. 
Gentlemen, 

I place at your disposal a copy of ■ the address de- 
livered before the Society. It is rather an historical essay than 
an oration, but I trust not less acceptable to you on that account. 
How successful my experiment has been it is not for me to say. 
I wished to call your attention to the unexplored sources of 
our own history, and if any portion of the intelligent audience I 
had the honor of addressing, learned any thing new connected 
with that history, the highest aim I had is attained. 
I am, with great regard, 

Your friend and fellow member, 

WILLIAM B. REED. 
To Messrs. Biddle, Watmough, 
Thouron, and Montgomery, 

Committee. 



ADDRESS. 



Relinquishing the path which my predecessors have 
pursued, I invite your attention to a subject that com- 
mends itself by its intrinsic interest, its patriotic associa- 
tions, its moral and political value. It is a theme worthy 
of more minute illustration than can now be given to it : 
the origin of our Revolutionary Union — the recorded 
and traditionary history of the acts and influences that 
led to the convocation of the first Continental Congress, 
which met in Philadelphia in the month of September, 
1774. 

I do not pause to vindicate this choice. I am address- 
ing an American literary association. Should what I 
have to say this evening fail to excite the interest which 
less practical themes in abler hands might produce, to 
me at least it will not be a matter of surprise. 
Neglected history has few charms. But should any 
word of mine give a new impulse to the patriotism of 
those who hear me ; should any one of you, young gen- 
tlemen, in following me through details of vast and 



abiding interest to the cause of civil liberty and social 
riwht, find that he has learned a new fact or secured a 

o 7 

clue to some new inquiry connected with the history of 
his country; should what may now be novelties to many 
of you tend hereafter to give rational vigour to the prin- 
ciple of loyalty in your bosoms, my aim will be attained, 
and all the reward that I promise myself secured. Great- 
er will be that reward if the course I venture to indicate 
be hereafter followed, and the anniversary addresses de- 
livered in these halls be made historical expositions, to 
which the student may have recourse as valuable re- 
pertories of facts rescued from the loose grasp of 
uncertain tradition or the mouldy pages of neglected 
history. 

None know but those who have critically examined it, 
how rich are the spoils of time which our history con- 
tains. Few can realise its true, though unappreciated 
value — how much it is neglected and how often prosti- 
tuted. Yes, prostituted — for he prostitutes the classic 
history of this soil who uses it for the poor purposes of 
contemporary strife, or explores its treasures merely to 
find new phrases of adulation to some leader whom ac- 
cident or faction may have raised to temporary distinc- 
tion. The jewels of the Revolution suit not the attire of 
the day. The armour of our age of chivalry would sink 
a modern ' hero' in the dust. The old Puritan wanderer 



who travelled through Scotland to visit the graves of the 
Cameronian sufferers, was the incarnation of a noble 
sentiment — a sentiment which, where it ripens into a 
rule of conduct, makes the pride of ancestry a virtue. 
Time with him had not weakened the memory or tradi- 
tion of " a broken covenant and a persecuted kirk," and 
it was his enthusiasm to travel from churchyard to 
churchyard, seeking no other recompense than the con- 
sciousness that he had arrested the hand of decay, and 
preserved, till some other enthusiast might appear to re- 
new them, the epitaphs of patriotism and valour. 

Such a feeling of veneration, such pride of lineage I 
invoke for the study of our American memorials. The 
invocation will not be in vain. 

The pride of Revolutionary ancestry — the sense that 
the blood which flows in his veins is the blood of a patriot 
of the Revolution, is an heritage that no American should 
disdain. It is more than a privilege ; it is " a sonorous 
memento" of fidelity to the cause of republican institu- 
tions and popular sovereignty; of the citizen's loyalty to 
the State; of hereditary obligation to patriotic duty and 
unwavering confidence in popular capacity. 

Such an impulse, if encouraged, may divert many 
an active mind from unprofitable pursuits, and arouse 
many a sluggish mind to action. If one tithe of 
the misdirected talent that now runs to waste through 



the columns of the periodical press were applied to the 
minute and philosophic illustration of different periods 
of our annals, how vast a fund might be accumulated for 
the use of the historian hereafter. If the undisciplined 
fancy that seeks indulgence in writing bad tragedies and 
silly novels could be taught to turn to this worthier 
theme, how masculine and characteristic might our lite- 
rature be made. If, instead of the literary confectionary 
with which the public mind is poisoned, American books 
on American topics, written in an American spirit, could 
find publishers and patrons — if the press were made 
to realise that its stereotyped praises might be better 
used than in dignifying with the name of literature the 
effusions, whether in poetry or prose, of presumptuous 
sciolists and underbred travellers — gossips abroad and 
coxcombs 'every where; — if, finally, the bounty of the 
rich were occasionally to find an object in the endow- 
ment of institutes or professorships where American his- 
tory could be taught accurately and elaborately, might 
we not hope to see a different result 1 Would we not be 
sure to find the young men of the Republic, not as they 
now too often are, doubting, from sheer ignorance, the 
success of our experiment of self government, but con- 
fident in popular capacity ; familiar, not with the merits 
of foreign politics alone and imbued with their spirit, 
but acquainted thoroughly with the theory of our own 



domestic institutions, learned from our own domestic 
history ? 

I have known young Americans with sympathies so 
ludicrously misdirected that they kept a careful record 
of election returns after a dissolution of parliament, and 
exulted as for a domestic political triumph, on the defeat 
of some obscure candidate in some obscure borough in 
Great Britain. Yet these same individuals would not 
blush to confess their ignorance of what the " Writs of 
Assistance" were at the outbreak of the Revolution, or to 
boast their better acquaintance with the merits of par- 
liamentary reform than those of parliamentary taxation. 
I have known others who knew little else of the Revolu- 
tion than its stores of gossip and scandal. If in any 
loyalist chronicle or tory pamphlet, a slanderous asper- 
sion on a patriot of the Revolution be detected, it is ad- 
duced as proof of destitution of public virtue in a cause 
that boasts so much. If, in the heat of political discus- 
sion during those times, suspicions of patriotism or pub- 
lic virtue were honestly or dishonestly expressed, suspi- 
cions and charges which time has dissipated, and which, 
with all the impurities of mortality, should be buried in 
the graves of their authors, these miserable resurrection- 
ists of slander employ their energies in digging up what 
should no more be seen or thought of, and are not 
2 



10 

ashamed to argue thence against the theory of our free 
institutions. This is the prostitution of our history. 

Let no one suppose that the study of our History is 
easy, or that the materials are ready to the student's 
hand. Far from it. Short as is the interval from our 
own days to those of the Revolution it is scarcely con- 
ceivable with how little of its detail we are familiar. 
The elementary works that have been published are not 
only superficial, but generally inaccurate. Memoirs, in 
themselves most valuable, are few in number. The fact 
that the best history of the colonies is by a Scotchman, 
and of the Revolution, by an Italian, (the latter having 
from necessity become a school book,) neither of whom 
had ever seen the country he describes, shows how poor 
is his reliance who depends for a precise knowledge of 
our history on what has been already published.* If 
any one will take a given era, or chapter in our annals, 
such, for instance, as the one I propose cursorily to 
illustrate, he will feel the difficulty to which I allude. In 
our elementary works, the Congress of 1774, the Parent 
of the Confederation and the Constitution, is disposed of 
in a single page of vague panegyric ; and, perhaps, the 

* M. Botta, and Mr. Grahame. The historical work of Mr. Grahame, 
recently revised and enlarged, is not as well known in this country as 
it should be. Not only is it a work of great research and accuracy, but 
it is written in a style and with a spirit that ought to make it popular. 
It is decidedly the best work on our colonial history. 



11 



sum of it all is the eulogy of the elder Pitt, " that its acts 
would have done honour to Greece and Rome in their best 
days." In order to understand such subjects properly, 
the treasures of hidden manuscripts must be explored; 
original journals and records perused; dates and tradi- 
tionary legends collated; the newspapers of the day 
cautiously scrutinised — all this and much more the stu- 
dent of our history has to do before he can pretend to dis- 
cover the hidden truth of times so little distant. With- 
out claiming to have investigated the subject as tho- 
roughly as it should be; in fact, content with pointing out 
a path for others to pursue, and suggesting to your minds 
a subject worthy of elaborate illustration, I now recur to 
the text I have selected. 

It would be out of place here to speculate on the 
varied causes which led to the rupture between Great 
Britain and her colonies. Those which political philoso- 
phy has indicated are familiar to you. The ultimate 
causes of the convocation of the first deliberative body of 
the United Colonies are all that I shall notice here. One 
word, however, as to the combination of causes more 
remote. To my mind the best solution of that great 
result is simply this— that the time had come, and that the 
period was reached, when, by a law of political nature, 
the child was to leave the parent's tutelage and become 
its own master. Other causes, or combinations of causes, 



12 

will be inadequate when we bear in mind that, in point 
of fact, at the time of the rupture, the load of actual 
grievance was little heavier than it had been for a long 
series of years before. I speak now not so much of the 
violation of constitutional rights as of the burthen of sub- 
stantial and injurious oppression. The Colonies had 
unquestioned constitutional rights. These rights were 
coincident with their birth, and so far were they from 
being first violated when complaint was made, the most 
flagrant violation of them was, from long acquiescence, 
rarely mentioned. The Navigation Acts, more than a 
century old when the Revolution began, by which the 
trade of the Colonies with other countries than Great 
Britain was prohibited, were an indefensible infringement 
of colonial rights. They too involved an actual griev- 
ance quite as hard to bear as any which were afterwards 
imposed. The act imposing a Stamp Tax was passed in 
1765. It was repealed in 1766 when the Declaratory Act 
was passed, asserting the right of Parliament to impose 
taxes on the Colonies. True to their awakened sense of 
colonial right, the patriots resisted the Stamp Act, and 
murmured at the Declaratory Act. In no part of the 
Colonies was the discontent stronger than in Pennsyl- 
vania; yet, as the historical student well knows, by the 
twentieth section of the Charter to William Perm, there 



13 

was an express reservation of a Parliamentary right of 
taxation.* 

The excitement produced by the Stamp Act having 
in great measure subsided, it was called into new action 
by the Revenue Bill of 1768. This imposed a duty on 
certain articles imported into the Colonies, and was de- 
signed to avoid the objection to the Stamp Act as a 
measure of internal taxation. It is not easy to distin- 
guish in point of constitutionality between such an Act 
as this and the Navigation Acts of Charles 2d, for, if 
Government could constitutionally prohibit all commercial 
intercourse except with the mother country, might it not 
by parity of reasoning derive a tribute from that very 
trade or any branch of it? As finally modified, the Reve- 
nue Bill was far less oppressive than the Navigation 
Acts. Indeed it involved an exemption from previous 
imposition; for, through the agency of the East India 

* " And further, our pleasure is and by these presents, for us, our 
heirs and successors, we do covenant and grant to, and with the said 
William Penn, his heirs and assigns, that we, our heirs and successors, 
shall at no time hereafter, set, or make, or cause to be set, any imposition, 
custom, or other taxation, rate or contribution whatsoever, in and upon 
the dwellers of the aforesaid province, for their lands, tenements, goods 
or chattels, or in and upon any goods or merchandise within the said 
province, or to be laden or unladen within the ports or harbours of the 
said province unless the same be with the consent of the proprietary, or 
chief governor and assembly, or by Act of Parliament in England." 

The 14th Section of the Charter recognised the validity and obli- 
gation of the Laws of Trade and Navigation. 



14 



Company, tea was to be imported into the Colonies at a 
less price than it had been before the obnoxious act was 
passed. Prior to the act, the foreign duty in Great 
Britain was one shilling per pound. By the act this duty 
was removed by drawback on tea destined for America, 
and in place of it a duty of 3d. a pound was substituted, 
payable in the Colonies. 

If then, at the beginning of the year 1774, the Colonies 
had no new oppression to complain of, may we not look 
elsewhere for causes for the state of things which then 
existed? They may, I repeat, be summed up in this, 
that the maturity of provincial growth was reached, the 
fulness of time was come; and it follows that, had the 
policy of the British Government, which led first to dis- 
content, been wholly abandoned, the result would scarcely 
have been different. Any one who will examine the 
pamphlets and other publications of the colonial press (in 
the interval) from 1704 to 1773, will be satisfied that the 
day for palliatives was passed, and that disease past 
remedy was wasting Imperial authority on this side of 
the Atlantic. 

In saying this, let me not for a moment be understood 
as questioning the sincerity of the murmurs which burst 
from colonial America, prior to this period. To say that 
there was little actual grievance, few of those modes of 
oppression which invade the pocket, or restrain the person 



15 



of the citizen, is to pay a just tribute to the quick sense 
of abstract right, which saw with instinctive precision 
each approach of danger. The spirit of liberty, which 
hovered over the Pilgrims to Plymouth, spread her wings 
over the continent. The community of colonial America 
had for a century been restless, it scarcely knew why 
or under what influence, and when, after the peace of 
1763, the gratitude of the mother country for the assis- 
tance of the Colonies during a long and bloody war, ex- 
hibited itself in the form of new and wanton impositions 
on trade, the period of submission was reached. From 
that time forward, the progress of discontent was never 
for a moment stayed. It would be curious to trace the 
varied forms it assumed. Colonial representation in 
Parliament was an early suggestion, which, however, was 
soon abandoned. In an original and unpublished letter, 
in my possession, of as early a date as 1764, the follow- 
ing language is held by one who, twelve years after- 
wards, signed the Declaration of Independence. " I am 
greatly concerned that the Colonies are likely to have 
such incumbrances laid upon them. I believe they must 
each of them send one or two of their most ingenious 
fellows, and enable them to get into the House of Com- 
mons, and maintain them there till they can maintain 
themselves, or else we shall be fleeced to some purpose. 
This must be the work of time. After the mother coun- 



If) 

try shall have added one oppressive measure to another, 
and after our colleges shall have thrown into the lower 
Houses of Assembly, men of more foresight and under- 
standing than they now can boast of, perhaps the time 
may come; you who are ten years younger than I am, 
will stand a fairer chance of seeing and being concerned 
in it than I shall."* The idea of such a representation, 
similar it would seem to that which Canada recently 
had in Parliament, or, indeed, any representation, on 
any basis, was soon abandoned, and accordingly we 
find in one of the Fairfax Resolutions, and the address 
of the Congress to the Colonies, in 1774, a distinct 
repudiation of any such mode of redress as idle and im- 
practicable. 

The fever of the blood never seemed to remit, and the 
symptoms of the certain result, however concealed then, 
cannot now be mistaken. In October, 1771, Samuel 
Adams wrote to Authur Lee then in England, " Many 
are alarmed, but are of different sentiments with regard 
to the next step to be taken. Some, indeed, think that 
every step has been taken but one. The ultima ratio 

would require prudence, unanimity, fortitude This is 

the general appearance of things here, while the people 

* This is an extract from a letter from Richard Stockton, of New 
Jersey, to a young friend then studying law in the Temple, who also 
acted a distinguished part in the drama of the Revolution. 



17 

are anxiously looking for some happy event on your side 
of the water. For my own part, I confess, I have no 
great expectation thence. I have long been of opinion 
that America herself, under God, must work out her own 
salvation." ' As early as October, 1770, John Dickinson 
wrote to Mr. Lee, " After what has taken place I scarce- 
ly know how to write of my unfortunate countrymen. 
Your observations are extremely just. We must owe 
our political salvation to the body of the people. No 
martyred saint ever beheld his butchers with more de- 
spairing pity, than I do the whole apparatus of tyranny. 
But to move great bodies strongly, there must be an 
appearance of deliberation in one's conduct. I am truly 
moderate. I wish only for ' placidam sub libertate quie- 
tem,' and I am for attaining the blessing by the most gentle 
means. My countrymen have been provoked, but not 
quite enough. Thanks to the excellent spirit of admin- 
istration, I doubt not but proper measures will be taken 
to provoke them still more. Some future oppression will 
render them more attentive to what is offered to them; 
and the calm friend of freedom, who faithfully watches 
and calls out on a new danger, will be more regarded 
than if he endeavours to repeat the alarm, or an attack 
that is thought to be in a great measure repelled. I do 
not despair. Our mercenaries have been defeated, our na- 
3 



18 

tive troops stand firm. There is a spirit and a strength in 
the landholders of this continent, sufficient to check the 
violence of any infamously corrupt ministry, and that the 
most daring of them may find perhaps sooner than he 
expects." In April, 1774, before the Boston Port Bill 
reached America, Samuel Adams made this solemn 
declaration, the first sentence of which is worthy the 
pen of Milton. " The body of the people are now 
in council. They are united. They are resolute. And 
if the British administration and government do not re- 
turn to the principles of moderation and equity, the evil 
which they profess to aim at preventing by rigorous 
measures, will the sooner be brought to pass, viz. the 
entire separation and Independence of the Colonies." 

Thus spoke the ardent and the moderate of those days; 
and looking to their language, transparent as it is to the 
strong impulses that agitated their minds, do we err in 
the belief that causes of greater efficacy were at work, 
which the patriots themselves did not detect, and that re- 
medies which they supposed might heal the wound, would 
have been wholly inoperative? The return of govern- 
ment to principles of moderation and equity would have 
availed little. The repeal of every obnoxious act, from 
the Peace of Paris, might have delayed but would not 
have averted the catastrophe. 

Speculative wrongs were soon to merge in subjection 



19 

to unequivocal and unmitigated despotism. In the latter 
part of December, 1773, the tea shipped by the East 
India Company arrived in America. Its fate is well 
known. At Boston it was destroyed, and at none of the 
Atlantic ports was it allowed an entry. There was in 
the conduct of the colonists throughout, a stern dignity 
— a resolute defiance of metropolitan power, that is 
worthy all admiration. Nor was it less admirable as 
involving but in a single instance, where popular endu- 
rance was too much tried, any overt act of violence. It 
is a libel on the Revolution to say that, "it sprang 
from a Boston riot." The "Boston riot" was the 
spasm of an agonised frame, and it is a profanation of 
history to cite it as authority for the violence of the 
hour, or the defiance of law, which the demagogues of 
the day may seek to excite or justify. Boston, in the 
language of one of her sons, had been so long " galled 
without and vexed within," that patience with her had 
ceased to be a virtue.* 

In the interval that elapsed after the return of the tea 
ships, and before the news of the decision of Government 
reached this country, the minds of the colonists were 
wound up to the most extreme tension. None could tell 
what form ministerial vengeance would take, or to what 

* Josiah Quincy Jun. 



20 

extent it would be urged. The quiet of that interval 
was the boding quiet which precedes the convulsion of 
nature. The air was still, not a leaf moved, not a sound 
was heard. The sternest patriot could not disguise his 
solicitude, the cautious and timid trembled, and were 
silent. It was like the period of the preceding century- 
described by that beautiful Puritan writer and heroine 
Mrs. Hutchinson : " The land was then att peace, (it be- 
ing toward the latter end of the reigne of king James,) 
if that quiettnesse may be called a peace, which was 
rather like the calme and smooth surface of the sea, 
whose darke wombe is allready impregnated of a horrid 
tempest." 

The bolts of ministerial vengeance did not slumber 
long, and in the short space of two months, no less than 
three special penal statutes were matured and enacted by 
the Imperial Parliament. They were directed at Boston 
and Massachusetts. The first was the Port Bill, by which 
the harbour of Boston was blockaded, its trade suspended, 
its privileges as a commercial city of the Empire annulled, 
and its Custom House removed to Marblehead. The 
next was the act altering the Charter of the province of 
Massachusetts Bay, so as more effectually to enforce the 
will of the officers of the crown; and the last and worst, 
" the Act for the more impartial administration of Jus- 
tice," by which persons charged with felonies were to be 



21 

removed to England for trial. These bills were passed 
by a steady ministerial majority, and after more or less 
opposition on the part of those who were known in Par- 
liament as the friends of the Colonies. They filled the 
new chapter of provocation. 

On Tuesday, May 10th, intelligence of the Port Bill 
reached Boston. On the 12th, by another arrival, it was 
received in New York, and on the 17th it was first known 
in Philadelphia. The instant and coincident action of 
the different communities shows how close was the bond 
of sympathy by which they were united. There was no 
pause in the expression of resentment, and at the instant 
when the beacon was fired at Boston, a light burst from 
every headland, and showed that there were watchmen 
who were watching the coming of the common danger 
from one end of the continent to the other. I shall not 
intrude on the province of history by narrating here the 
action of the colonists at the various prominent points, 
but pass hastily to the remedy which was suggested and 
adopted. 

At Boston redress was proposed in the form of imme- 
diate agreements of commercial non-intercourse with 
Great Britain and the West Indies, and a special agent, 
Mr. Paul Revere, the father of one of our respected fel- 
low citizens, was sent southward as far as Philadelphia 
to solicit the concurrent action of the Colonies. And 



22 

here I may be allowed to correct an error that has crept 
into all the histories of the times with respect to the first 
formal recommendation of the mode of redress which 
was adopted. I mean the convocation of a General 
Congress. 

Prior to 1774, there had been many suggestions of 
something like an union of the Colonies through their 
representatives in Congress. In April, 1773, Samuel 
Adams said — "Should the correspondence from Virginia 
produce a Congress and then an assembly of states, it 
would require the head of a very able minister to speak 
with so respectable a body. This, perhaps, is a mere 
fiction in the mind of a political enthusiast ; ministers of 
state are not apt to be disturbed with dreams." In April 
1774, Arthur Lee, writing from London, stated as his 
opinion, " that there ought to be a Congress." These 
were private suggestions. Such a measure had been 
adopted with beneficial effect at the time of the Stamp 
Act, and seemed to be the only one which commended 
itself alike to the moderate and the zealous. The friend 
of government could not object when he knew that the 
alternative was open resistance in the form of obstruc- 
tions to trade. The patriot could not withhold his ap- 
proval to a plan which, however productive of short 
delay, secured concert of action and effective sympathy. 
Thus acceptable to all when once formally suggested, it 



23 

was promptly acceded to, and history has thought the 
inquiry worth attention, to whom belongs the credit of 
having at this crisis formally revived the plan. All the 
elementary writers that I have consulted, as well as the 
most accurate biographers who have examined the sub- 
ject, have concurred in assigning the credit of this great 
measure to our sister city of New York. The careful 
examination of original papers that I have had occasion 
to make satisfies me that this is an error, and that the 
plan of a Congress was not only not first suggested in 
New York, but was not proposed there at all till the 
recommendation came from Philadelphia. 

To neither community, however, in point of fact, does 
the merit of the first public suggestion of a Congress be- 
long. On the 17th May, 1774, a town meeting was held 
at Providence, Rhode Island, called by warrant, at which 
Samuel Nightingale acted as Moderator, and the follow- 
ing resolutions were adopted: 

" Resolved, That this town will heartily join with the 
province of Massachusetts Bay and the other Colonies 
in such measures as shall be generally agreed on by the 
Colonies, for the protecting and securing their invaluable 
rights and privileges, and transmitting the same to the 
latest posterity. 

"Resolved, That the deputies of this town be requested 
to use their influence at the approaching session of the 



24 

Gener.il Assembly of this Colony, for promoting a Con- 
gress, as soon as may be, of the representatives of the 
General Assemblies of the several Colonies and provinces 
in North America, for establishing the firmest union and 
adopting such measures as to them shall appear most 
effectual to insure that important purpose, and to agree 
upon proper methods for executing the same." 

These resolutions, though prior to the action of New 
York and Philadelphia, were probably for a time un- 
known beyond the immediate neighborhood where they 
originated. The question as to which of the two prin- 
cipal cities of the colonies publicly agitated the proposi- 
tion of a Congress still remains; and the error of giving, 
in this matter, New York a precedence to Philadelphia, 
is not affected by the anterior action of the Town Meet- 
ing at Providence. 

The first meeting that was held at New York after 
the receipt of the Port Bill was on the 16th May, when 
nothing was done beyond the appointment of a commit- 
tee of fifty to correspond with the Colonies. On Tues- 
day, 17th, the express arrived from Boston on its way to 
Philadelphia. On Thursday, 19th, a second meeting 
was called to ratify the proceedings of the former meet- 
ing. At neither of these was there a suggestion made 
as to a Congress. On Monday, the twenty-third of May, 



25 

the Committee of Fifty met and adopted the following 
Resolution : 

" Ordered, that Mr. M'Dougall, Mr. Low, Mr. Duane 
and Mr. Jay be a committee to prepare and report a 
draft of an answer to the Boston Committee at 8 o'clock 
P. M., to which hour the Grand Committee then ad- 
journed. «• 

At 8 o'clock the same evening (23d) the Grand Com- 
mittee met, and the letter prepared by Mr. Jay recom- 
mending a General Congress was reported and adopted. 
This, says his biographer, was the first formal sugges- 
tion of a Congress for the Colonies. At the same meet- 
ing it was " Ordered, that the chairman send a copy of 
this letter to the Committee at Boston, and to the Com- 
mittee of Correspondence at Philadelphia, acknowledging 
the receipt of a copy of their letter to Boston, and approving 
the sentiments contained in it." 

But in the interval, what was doing in this, our staid 
and peaceful city, and what was the letter which the New 
York gentlemen received from Philadelphia? On the 17th 
or 18th of May, the Port Bill was published in the papers 
of Philadelphia, and on that, or the next day, Mr. Revere 
arrived from Boston. On Friday evening, May 20th, 
between two and three hundred of the most respectable 
inhabitants met at the City Tavern, when a Committee 
4 



26 

of Correspondence was appointed.* On the 21st the 
Committee met and reported a letter to Boston, which 
was adopted, signed and despatched by Mr. Revere. As 
I have stated, it is dated two days before the New York 
committee met, or Mr. Jay's letter was reported, and con- 
tains the following passage, conclusive on this question of 
precedence. 

" By what means the truly desirable circumstance of 
a reconciliation and future harmony with our mother 
country, on constitutional grounds, may be obtained, is 
indeed a weighty question. Whether by the method you 
have suggested of a non-importation and non-exportation 
agreement, or by a General Congress of Deputies from 
the different Colonies, clearly to state what we conceive 
to be our rights, and to make a claim, or petition of them 
to his majesty, in firm but decent and dutiful terms, so as 
that we may know by what line to conduct ourselves in 
future, are now the great points to be determined. The 
latter we have reason to think would be the most agree- 
able to the people of the province, and the first step that 
ought to be taken; the former may be reserved as our 
last resource should the other fail, which we trust will 

* It consisted of John Dickinson, William Smith, Edward Penington, 
Joseph Fox, John Nixon, John M. Nesbit, Samuel Howell, Thomas 
Mifflin, Joseph Reed, Thomas Wharton Jun., Benjamin Marshall, 
Thomas Barclay, George Clymer, Charles Thomson, Jeremiah Warder 
Jun., John Cox, John Gibson and Thomas Penrose. 



27 

not be the case, as many wise and good men in the 
mother country begin to see the necessity of a good un- 
derstanding with the Colonies, upon the general plan of 
liberty as well as commerce." 

This letter dated the twenty-first was received and 
acknowledged at New York on the twenty-third, and on 
its receipt was the formal suggestion of a Congress made 
by Mr. Jay in his letter to Boston. 

This question of precedence disposed of, it would be 
interesting, were time allowed me, to note the similarity 
in many respects, of the movements at New York and 
Philadelphia, and the difficulties which in each place the 
friends of liberty had to overcome. A letter of Governeur 
Morris, of that date, has been preserved, in which, in his 
peculiar manner, and with what I may be permitted to 
call his habitual sneer at every thing like popular move- 
ment, he describes the tumult and disorder which distin- 
guished the meetings of the 17th and 19th May, at New 
York. The perplexities of the patriots in Philadelphia 
were scarcely less. I have in my possession a manu- 
script narrative of the events of that day, left by the late 
Charles Thomson, who with his friends John Dickinson, 
Joseph Reed, and Thomas Mifflin, were the principal 
actors in the opening scene of the great drama. It 
describes the meeting at the City Tavern, on the 20th 
May, as composed of various and discordant materials. 



28 

There were the proprietary interests, the sons of the prin- 
cipal officers of government, the whigs, all impatient to 
know what was to be laid before them, what was to be 
said, what was to be done, all anxious to stimulate or com- 
pose the excitement of the time. The narrative thus pro- 
ceeds: (the writer generally speaking of himself in the 
third person) " The room, though large, w r as exceedingly 
crowded. The letter received from Boston was read, 
after which Mr. Reed addressed the assembly with tem- 
per, moderation, and in pathetic terms. Mifflin spoke 
next with great warmth and fire. Thomson succeeded, 
and pressed for an immediate declaration in favour of 
Boston, and making common cause with her, but being 
overcome with the heat of the room and fatigue, for he 
had scarce slept an hour for two nights past, he fainted, 
and was carried out into an adjoining room. Great 
clamour was raised against the violence of the measures 
proposed. Mr. Dickinson then addressed the meeting. 
In what manner he acquitted himself I cannot say.* 
After he had finished the clamour was renewed. Voices 
were heard in different parts of the room, and all was in 

* Mr. Reed, in describing the proceedings, says, "After Mr. Thomson 
had fainted, he (Mr. R.) supported what he had previously said and sat 
down, when Mr. Dickinson rose and recommended an address to the 
Governor to call the Assembly; this being done in a few words he im- 
mediately left the meeting and returned home." MS. in my posses- 
sion.— W. B. R. 



29 

confusion. A chairman was called for, to moderate the 
meeting and regulate debates. Still the confusion con- 
tinued. As soon as Mr. Thomson recovered, he returned 
into the room. The tumult and disorder were past de- 
scription. He had not strength to attempt opposing the 
gust of passion, or to allay the heat by anything he could 
say. He therefore simply moved a question that an 
answer should be returned to the letter from Boston. 
This was put and carried. He then moved for a Com- 
mittee to write the answer. This was agreed to, and 
two lists were immediately made out and handed to the 
chair. The clamour was then renewed on which list a 
vote should be taken. At length it was proposed that 
both lists should be considered as one, and compose the 
Committee. This was agreed to, and the company broke 
up in tolerable good humour, both parties thinking they 
had in part carried their point. At what time Mr. Dick- 
inson left the room I cannot say, as a great many with- 
drew when the tumult raged. Next day the Committee 
met, and not only prepared and sent back an answer to 
Boston, but also forwarded the news to the Southern 
Colonies, accompanied with letters intimating the neces- 
sity of a Congress of Delegates from all the Colonies to 
devise measures necessary to be taken for the common 
safety. It was then proposed to call a general meeting 
of the inhabitants of the city at the State House. This 



30 

required great address. The Quakers had an aversion 
to town meetings, and always opposed them. However 
it was so managed that they gave their consent, assisted 
in preparing for this public meeting, and agreed on the 
persons who should preside and those who should address 
the inhabitants. The presidents agreed on were Dickin- 
son, Willing and Penington. The speakers were Smith,* 
Reed, and Thomson, who were obliged to write down 
what they intended to say, and submit it to the revision 
of the presidents. The meeting was held, and it was 
resolved to make common cause with Boston." 

At this crisis, the three Colonies whose action was 
regarded with most solicitude, were Massachusetts, 
Pennsylvania, and Virginia. We have seen that, while 
in New England the first impulse was to resort to 
extremities, by immediate non-intercourse and separate 
colonial action, the patriots who there controlled the 
counsels of discontent, simultaneously with their first 
expressions of resentment, sent a special messenger to 
Philadelphia to ascertain the views of their friends here. 
Almost immediately on the return of that messenger, the 
proposal of a Congress was cordially approved and 
Philadelphia fixed as the place of its convention. 

The " Ancient Dominion" was prompt in her action. 

* The Rev. William Smith, Provost of the College. 



31 

Virginia had been well grounded in the rudiments of dis- 
content, and had been taught in the various contests 
between the Assemblies and the Royal Governors, by- 
how frail a tenure the rights of the Colonial subject would 
be held if popular vigilance were once lulled to sleep. 
There were also two elements of agitation in Virginia, 
which could hardly be said to exist elsewhere. The 
Church of England here had peculiar privileges that were 
looked on with an evil eye by the dissenters, and against 
which, as part and parcel of the appendages of Govern- 
ment, sectarian and political animosity allied their forces. 
" The Church of England," we are told by Mr. Burke,* 
" was formed from its cradle under the nursing care of 
regular government," and the instant that regular govern- 
ment in Colonial America began to be threatened, it 
hugged its foster child to its affrighted bosom, and made 
at once the parent's and the infant's cause the same. 
The dissenters, especially the Baptists, in Virginia threw 
themselves at once into the ranks of political opposition, 
and saw, in the progress and sure result of social disor- 
ganisation, the issue of their polemical aspirations. 
Besides this, there were castes in Virginia. There was 
an order of spurious aristocracy, and there was a class of 
men who had not the instinct of submission which belongs 



* s 



peech on Conciliation with America. 



32 

to a people used to hereditary nobility. These sturdy 
murmurers at the pretensions of the " untitled nobility" 
of Virginia, Patrick Henry represented, and never had 
the democratic principle a more sincere or conscientious 
advocate. He was the true tribune of an injured people. 
He believed " all men to be free and equal." He was a 
republican in spirit and in truth. With such a leader, it 
may be supposed how much force was given to the move- 
ment in Virginia by the activity of the party identified 
with what might be called the lower classes. Religious 
dissent and social restlessness were thus combined to 
make the atmosphere more explosive. 

Let me here mention to you a curious anecdote, which 
I do not remember to have seen on record, connected 
with the memorials of the Virginia Orator. Most of you 
no doubt are familiar with the biography of Patrick 
Henry, by the late Mr. Wirt. Prefixed to that volume 
is an engraved portrait of Mr. Henry, the history of which 
is somewhat curious. When the memoir was ready for 
the press, its author and his friends were anxious to pro- 
cure a portrait, and made diligent though ineffectual 
search for one. None could then be discovered. The 
late John Randolph of Virginia, informed Mr. Wirt that 
the only known resemblance to Mr. Henry, was the head 
of Captain Cook, on Arrowsmith's map of the world. 
On this hint the publisher of the biography acted. The 



33 

skill of our townsman, Mr. Sully, was put in requisition, 
and by divesting the British sailor of his uniform coat, 
and adorning him with a cloak, wig, and spectacles, he 
was transformed into the rebel orator. The indefatio-a- 

is 

ble proprietor of the National Portrait Gallery, our fellow 
citizen, Mr. Longacre, has since succeeded in finding an 
original miniature of Mr. Henry, and any one who will 
examine the latter will be forcibly struck with the 
contrast of the two portraits. Which is the more faith- 
ful I of course pretend not to say. 

On the 24th of May, the House of Burgesses was in 
session. The news of the Port Bill arrived on that, or 
the day before. A resolution was introduced and adopt- 
ed, fixing the first of June as a day of fasting, humiliation, 
and prayer. The book of precedents, to which the Vir- 
ginia " faithful subjects" had recourse, was one of evil 
omen to royal authority. " No example of such a so- 
lemnity," says Mr. Jefferson, " had existed since the days 
of our distresses in the war of '55, since which a new 
generation had grown up. With the help of Rushworth, 
whom we rummaged over for the revolutionary prece- 
dents and forms of the Puritans of those days, preserved 
by him, we cooked up a resolution, somewhat modern- 
ising the phrases, for appointing the "first of June, on 
which the Port Bill was to commence, for a day of fast- 
ing, humiliation, and prayer, to implore Heaven to avert 
5 



34 

from us the evils of civil war, and to inspire us with firm- 
ness in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts of 
the king and parliament to moderation and justice." 

May we not suppose, that among the thick coming 
fancies that floated through the minds of Henry and his 
associates, were more than one of separation — violent, 
bloody separation — and independence. What a picture 
for the hand of art to trace would be Patrick Henry, 
poring over the pages of Rushworth, and catching the 
spirit of Pym, of Vane and Hampden, from its illumi- 
nated record ! The volume which told the tale of long 
endured wrong, and slow resentment; of a monarchy 
strongly guarded by the prejudices of the age, sustained 
by the hierarchy, the nobility, and the soldiery, trampling 
on popular rights and popular feelings. It told the tale 
of arbitrary taxation and its issue; narrated the rise, the 
progress, and the triumph of popular feeling thus defied — 
of a single individual starting from an humble sphere and 
wresting from the high hand of authority, the sceptre and 
the crown — it told of a Parliament sovereign in itself, 
and proud in its disregard of the dissolving and prorogu- 
ing power of the throne — it told of the austere tribu- 
nal that brought to its bar successively all the oppressors 
of the people, the haughty and misguided Laud, the traitor 
Wcntworth; and, finally, passed the stern decree that 
sent Charles Stuart to a bloody doom, which pity can 



35 

scarcely pronounce unmerited. This was the volume 
from which the patriots of Virginia learned their lessons 
of loyalty and submission.* 

As a matter of literary curiosity 1 have "rummaged" 
the volumes of Rush worth to discover the precedent 
which the Virginia patriots followed. On Monday, 7th 
of June, 1647, the following entry appears on the minutes 
of the Commons : 

* May I be permitted here to record, in better language than my own, 
a character of the Puritan patriots of the Commonwealth of 1640, to 
each word of which a republican student must subscribe. " At this time, 
Philosophy ceasing to be speculative, applied itself to public business; 
and sought, by seizing the helm of Government, to steer the ship of the 
Commonwealth in the direction most agreeable to the wishes of all wise 
and good men. The records of ancient and modern times were ransack- 
ed, in the hope of discovering hints for the improvement of society. 
Principles favourable to religious toleration were gradually established. 
Religion, greatly purified from the errors of the Roman church, began 
powerfully to influence the politics of the country, to operate a reform 
in manners, to raise and purify the character of its votaries. For the 
first time, perhaps, since the age of the apostles, Christianity was put in 
practice by high-minded disinterested men, who sought in earnest to lay 
the foundations of an evangelical Commonwealth, modelled in harmony 
with the precepts of the gospel, such as no other age or country ever 
yet aimed at. The Puritans, in fact, were genuine Christians, the most 
perfect, perhaps, that, with the failings inherent in human nature, we 
can ever expect to see on earth. They united with the sincerest piety 
and the fervent belief of all truth, a martial temper more stern and un- 
bending than chivalry and knighthood ever inspired. Their courage 
was indomitable. Wise in council, adventurous and enthusiastic in the 
field, they were precisely the soldiers a great general would choose with 
which to subdue the world." — Preliminary Discourse to the Prose 
Jf'orks of Milton, by .?. St. John. 



30 

" Some debate there was about a fast for the members 
of Parliament only : and accordingly it was ordered by 
the Commons that this House set apart next Wednesday 
for a day of humiliation. That God would be pleased 
to give them one heart and one mind in carrying on the 
great work of the Lord. And Mr. Marshal, Mr. Strong 
and Mr. Whitecar are appointed to pray and preach 
with them in their own House. The Lords likewise 
joined the Commons in observing the Fast." On the 
27th of July, 1647, a Proclamation of the Kirk of Scot- 
land directing a General Fast was read in Parliament, 
one inducement to which is in form, "the phrases being 
somewhat modernised," the same as that of Virginia. 

" We are to entreat the Lord in the behalf of the 
King's majesty, that he may be reconciled to God, and 
that he may be now furnished with wisdom and counsel 
from above, that he be not involved in new snares to the 
endangering of himself and these kingdoms ; but that 
his heart may incline to such resolutions as will contri- 
bute for settling of religion and righteousness." On the 
same page of Rushworth from which this extract is 
made will be found the following ominous minute : " Die 
Lunoe, 26 Julii, 1647. The House of Commons having 
adjourned till the morning, and Mr. Speaker risen out of 
his chair, and the members going out, divers petitioners 



37 

moved them to sit again, and the Speaker returning to 
his chair, and the members sitting in their places, the 
petitioners desire them to vote that the King's majesty 
should come to London ; whereupon it was Resolved, 
DCP That His Majesty shall come to London."* 
On the next day but one the Governor dissolved the 
House. On the following day eighty-nine members met 
at a room in the Apollo Tavern and signed a formal 
association, pledging themselves to resolute co-operation 
with the other Colonies, and recommending ar* immedi- 
ate call of a General Congress. In one important par- 
ticular this sus^estion differed from the others. It 
contemplated Congress as a permanent body, and re- 
commended that " Deputies should be appointed to meet 
in General Congress at such place annually as may be 
thought most convenient." On Sunday, the 29th, letters 
were received by express from Boston, Philadelphia and 
Annapolis, and immediately considered. Every thing, 
however, was ultimately referred to a general meeting, 
to be held at Williamsburg on the 1st of August. 

Thus within little more than a fortnight from the date 
of the receipt of the Port Bill all the principal Colonies 
had bound themselves in this voluntary league, and were 

* Rushworth's Historical Collections, Part IV, Vol. I, pp. 546. 644. 



38 

pledged to the great measure of resistance — an Union 
and a Congress. 

I should detain you too long were I to dwell on the 
interesting details of popular movement which filled the 
interval that elapsed from the period at which we 
have now arrived, to the month of September, when 
the Congress met. Every city — every county — every 
hamlet had its public meeting and voted its instructions 
to the Delegates to be elected. The soil was thoroughly 
volcanic, and the jets of flame which burst from every 
crevice showed what subterranean fires burned beneath. 
To two prominent expressions of sentiment shall I, 
for the sake of their peculiar interest, point your atten- 
tion — pausing first merely to indicate the mode and pe- 
riods of the election of the Delegates. The first election 
was made by Rhode Island on the 15th of June: her 
Delegates were Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward. 
The last was that of North Carolina, on the 24th of Au- 
gust. The Delegates from Rhode Island and Pennsyl- 
vania were elected by the Assemblies, acting regularly 
under their charters. Those from Massachusetts were 
elected by the House of Representatives, acting suddenly 
and with closed doors on the last day of its session. 
The record of that day is curious and characteristic. I 
cite it from a journal of the times. 



39 

"June 17, 1774. His Excellency the Governor having 
directed the Secretary to acquaint the two Houses that 
it was his pleasure that the General Assembly should be 
dissolved, and to declare the same dissolved accordingly, 
the Secretary went to the Court House, and finding the 
door of the Representative Chamber locked, directed the 
Messenger to go in and acquaint the Speaker that the 
Secretary had a message from His Excellency to the 
Honorable House, and desire he might be admitted to 
deliver it. The Messenger returned and said he had 
acquainted the Speaker therewith, who mentioned it to 
the House, and tlicir orders were, to keep the door fast. 
Whereupon the Proclamation was published on the stairs 
leading to the Chamber, dissolving the Assembly." 

The Delegates from Virginia were elected by the 
members of a dissolved House, and all the other Dele- 
gates were chosen by the voluntary action of the differ- 
ent Colonies in Provincial Committees. In all except 
New York the whole Colony was represented. The city 
of New York and King's county were the only portions 
of that important province represented in the First Con- 
gress — and, according to the testimony of Mr. Galloway 
before the House of Commons, (assuming that to be 
worthy of credit,) the representative of King's county, 
Mr. Bocrum, was elected at a meeting composed of two 
individuals, one of whom was the Delegate himself. On 



40 

the 6th July, 1774, every district of South Carolina ex- 
cept three, (Grenville, St. John's, Colleton county, and 
Christ Church Parish,) was represented in a voluntary 
convention in Charleston. A poll was opened and five 
Delegates were elected to represent the Colony to the 
General Congress. On Tuesday, August 2d, the As- 
sembly of the Province met. Its action is thus described 
in a letter from the Governor to Lord Dartmouth. 

" It having been expected that I should prorogue the 
General Assembly yesterday at the usual time, about ten 
or eleven o'clock, the Assembly privately and punctually 
met at eight o'clock in the morning" (on account, they 
say, of the excessive heat of the weather,) " and made 
an house, which was very uncommon. They had not 
been assembled five minutes before I was apprised of it. 
I immediately went to the Council Chamber in order to 
prorogue them, and waited a few minutes for one or two 
of the Council to be present. As soon as I sent for the 
Assembly they attended, and I prorogued them to the 
6th of September; but their business having been ready 
prepared, in which they were all previously agreed, it 
required only a few minutes to pass through the forms 
of the House. They came to two Resolutions — one 
approving and confirming the election of the five persons 
chosen on the 6th of last month to assist at the Congress 
of the several Provinces; and the other, that they would 



41 

provide for the expense of their voyage. I returned to 
my own house in less than twenty minutes past eight. 
Your Lordship will sec by this instance with what per- 
severance, secresy and unanimity they form and conduct 
their designs — how obedient the body is to the head, and 
how faithful in their secrets." 

The Delegates from South Carolina were Henry Mid- 
dleton, John Rutledge, Thomas Lynch, Christopher 
Gadsden and Edward Rutledge. At one of the prepara- 
tory meetings at which they were chosen Charles Cotes- 
worth Pinckney presided. No one of the Colonies had 
better reason to be proud of its representatives than 
South Carolina. They had a rich reward : and three of 
the names I have enumerated, let me observe in passing, 
are associated with an incident probably new to you, but 
which has always seemed to me full of interest. In the 
Congress of 1774, John and Edward Rutledge first met 
George Washington as a fellow patriot or a fellow rebel, 
as the issue might be. In less than twenty years from 
that time George Washington was President of these 
United States, free and independent, and John and 
Edward Rutledge were two of his most tried and valued 
friends. They had stood side to side in common peril, 
in the council and in the field. When the Federal Go- 
vernment was organized, Washington selected the bro- 
thers for special honours. In 1789, John Rutledge was 
6 



12 

appointed an Associate Judge of the Supreme Court of 
the United States. On his resignation two years after- 
wards the President addressed to Edward Rutledge and 
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney the following curious joint 
Jetter, for which 1 am indebted to Mr. Sparks' invaluable 
collection : 

" Columbia, S. C, 2d May, 1791. 
" Gentlemen, 

"An address to you jointly on a subject of the fol- 
lowing nature may have a singular appearance; but that 
singularity will not exceed the evidence which is thereby 
given of my opinion of and confidence in you, and of 
the opinion I entertain of your confidence and friendship 
for each other. The office lately resigned by Mr. John 
Rutledge in the Supreme Judiciary of the Union, remains 
to be filled. Will either of you two gentlemen accept it? 
And in that case, which of you ? 

Of my sincere esteem and regard for you both, I wish 
you to be persuaded, and that I am, gentlemen, &c. 

" George Washington." 

In a joint answer the two friends declined the appoint- 
ment, partly from private considerations and partly from 
a belief that they could better serve their country in the 
State Legislature of which they were members. Their 
reply thus concludes: "But as we devoted a large por- 
tion of our early years to the service of our country, so 



43 

whenever her honour or her interest shall seem to re- 
quire our aid, we shall cheerfully lay aside all private or 
partial considerations, and imitate, so far as may be in 
our power, the best and brightest of examples." Musing 
on this beautiful incident, characteristic alike of him who 
gave and thein who received the mark of confidence, 
may we not mourn over the contrast of the past and the 
present? I speak it not invidiously, but where is the 
executive patron now who can find two disinterested 
friends to be trusted thus — where, under the atmospheric 
influence that makes all, save very few indeed, seekers 
of offices and jobs, and fills every avenue to authority 
with scrambling assailants, rushing like the mob of Paris 
on the Swiss within — where shall we find two partizans 
who would refuse so high an honour for so high a reason? 

On the 1st July, 1795, the President appointed John 
Rutledge Chief Justice of the United States on the re- 
signation of Mr. Jay, also a member of the First Conti- 
nental Congress. Rich indeed must have been the soil 
which produced such fruits. 

I have said there were some important primary meet- 
ings among the thousand which were held throughout the 
provinces, worthy of attention. Among them was that 
at which Washington presided, in Fairfax county, Vir- 
ginia, and which may be supposed to have spoken his 
sentiments and expectations at this crisis. He was a 



44 

member of the House of Burgesses at the time of its 
dissolution, and was a participant in the action of its 
refractory members when the news of the Port Bill ar- 
rived. The entry in his diary for the first of June shows 
how solemnly he regarded the issue and how thoroughly 
he was imbued with the spirit of the times. "June 1st, 
Wednesday — Went to church and fasted all day." A few 
days afterwards he returned to Mount Vernon. The 
Fairfax county meeting was held on Monday, 18th of 
July. George Washington was Moderator and reported 
the resolutions, the authorship of which belongs, it is 
presumed, to George Mason, a copy in his writing being 
found in the Washington archives. Their style is clear 
and forcible, and they contain some views which, for 
their modes of expression and peculiar interest, cannot 
be passed by. They open with the strong assertion of 
the colonial communion of privilege with the mother 
country ; declaring that this Colony and Dominion of 
Virginia cannot be considered as a conquered country ; 
and if it be, its present inhabitants are the descendants, 
" not of the conquered, but of the conquerors." They 
recommend a Congress and commercial non intercourse; 
non-importation at once and non-exportation afterwards. 
The seventeenth Resolution, considering the source 
whence it came, is worthy of all attention, even at this 
day. It is in these emphatic words: 



45 

"Resolved, That it is the opinion of this meeting, that 
during our present difficulties and distress, no slaves 
ought to be imported into any of the British Colonies on 
this continent; and we take this opportunity of declaring 
our most earnest wishes to see an entire stop for ever 
put to such a wicked, cruel and unnatural trade." 

The discrimination made between the periods at which 
non-importation and non-exportation agreements were to 
be resorted to, rests on a basis of honour and sense of 
justice with which Washington and Virginia seem to 
have been strongly impressed. To Virginia, indeed, so 
far as I have been able to trace it, is due the praise of 
having first suggested this discrimination, and in Wash- 
ington's private letters is the first illustration of its rea- 
son. The Colonies were of course a debtor country. 
Manufactures they may be said to have had none ; and 
those products which are now our country's staples, and 
by means of which we hold the world in tribute, were 
then unknown. The commercial balance was thus al- 
ways on one side. The habitual maintenance of the 
nation's faith is a Briton's proudest boast, and none but 
the brood of puny moralists and wretched partizans, 
whom later times have produced, ever pretended to dis- 
tinguish between the political and commercial debt of a 
people so far as the nation's faith is involved. Deep 
and dark indeed must be the dishonour with which his- 



46 

tory will mark the character of that government or 
those public men who connect their policy with the self- 
ish and wicked scheme of compelling its citizens to dis- 
regard the obligations which, in the aggregate, make a 
nation's commercial debt to foreigners. Even in the 
excitement of impending revolution our ancestors, burn- 
ing with just indignation at oppression, did not lose 
sight of this hereditary obligation. They took the 
distinction at once between the right not to buy and 
the right not to pay for what they had bought already. 
In a letter to a near relative, dated two days after the 
Fairfax meeting, Washington thus speaks of its pro- 
ceedings : 

"As to the resolution of addressing the throne, I own 
to you, sir, I think the whole might as well have been 
expunged. I expect nothing from the measure, nor should 
my voice have sanctioned it, if the non-importation was 
intended to be retarded by it, for I am convinced as much 
as I am of my existence, that there is no relief for us, 
but in their distress; and I think, at least I hope, there is 
public virtue enough left among us to deny ourselves 
every thing but the bare necessaries of life to accomplish 
this end. This we have a right to do, and no power 
upon earth can compel us to do otherwise, till it has first 
reduced us to the most abject state of slavery. The 
stopping of our exports to Great Britain would, no doubt, 



47 

be a shorter method than the other to effect this purpose, 
but if we owe money to Great Britain, nothing but the 
last necessity can justify the non-payment of it; and, 
therefore, I have great doubts upon this head, and wish 
the other method first tried, which is legal and will 
facilitate these payments." 

In the instructions prepared at Williamsburgh, on the 
1st of August, for the Delegates to Congress, the same 
idea was enforced, and the only restriction which was 
imposed, was one preventing immediate resort to non- 
exportation, originating, as the convention expressly 
stated, " in their earnest desire to make as quick and 
full payment as possible of their debts to Great Britain."* 

Between the date of these proceedings and the meet- 
ing of the Congress, the news of a new Parliamentary 
Statute reached this country and was made to add new 
fuel for the flame, which was ready to be lighted. I refer 



* In the Pennsylvania Gazette of 3d August, 1774, is the following 
notice copied from a Fredericksburg paper: 

A Card. — A Virginian presents his compliments to the Jockey Clubs 
of Fredericksburg and Portsmouth, and begs that they will suppress their 
sporting spirit till the circumstances of America can permit it with more 
decency. He also begs leave to recommend to the most serious con- 
sideration of these Clubs, whether their purses applied to the relief of 
the distressed Bostonians, would not afford them more real pleasure than 
all that can arise from viewing a painful contest between two or three 
animals. 



48 

to the Bill commonly known as the Quebec Bill, the effect 
of which in the Colonies was most remarkable. Look- 
ing at this statute with cool minds, and in a spirit of 
tolerable impartiality, it is difficult to find in it or about 
it the horrors with which excited imagination once 
painted it. It contained a provision restoring the French 
laws and modes of justice to the Province of Canada 
as best suited to the habits and manners of the popula- 
tion. But, beside this, it contained a provision for the 
maintenance of the privileges of the Catholic clergy, and 
the free exercise of the religion of the Church of Rome 
in Canada, subject to the king's supremacy. Its enact- 
ment was a measure of obvious policy if not necessity to 
the ministry. It was in legal phrase a bill quia timet, a 
measure to secure tranquillity in Canada, by whatever 
concessions, at a moment when the other Colonies were 
so thoroughly disturbed. The fear that prompted the con- 
cessions must now be conceded not to have been unrea- 
sonable. No sooner, however, was the Bill introduced into 
Parliament, than it was denounced by the Opposition as 
a measure designed to introduce absolute despotism and 
unmitigated Popery into a large part of the King's do- 
minions, and bitter were the taunts, and violent the invec- 
tives that were hurled at the Bench of Bishops, and other 
High Church ministerial members, who with unusual 
tolerance and kindness to an ancient foe, sustained the 



49 

measure. Vain were the protestations of the Minister 
and his party, the clamour was loud and the excitement 
deep and pervading. With this opposition gloss and 
comment, the Quebec Bill reached America, and thus 
interpreted we may wonder that it did not produce a 
greater sensation among those whose religious feelings 
were so strong, and whose temperaments were so excita- 
ble and excited. 

The religious sentiment which operated on the 
Revolution would be a theme of great interest — but it is 
one worthy of more minute examination than I have the 
means or time to bestow on it. I refer to it now merely as 
connected directly with my subject. When the Quebec 
Bill passed, little more than one hundred years had elaps- 
ed since the Puritan settlers of New England had fled 
from the religious persecution of a church identified 
closely in their imaginations with the Church of Rome. 
"Prelatist and Paoist" were, in their estimation, con- 
vertible terms. Less than one hundred years had elapsed 
since a Roman Catholic monarch was driven from the 
British throne, and it was not quite thirty years since 
Protestant England had been invaded by an adventurer 
of the exiled family, sustained by the favour of the Vatican 
and the arms of France. The feelings of the Common- 
wealth of 1640, and of the Revolution of 1688, were 

strong in Puritan New England. They were strong in 

7 



50 

Protestant America. Nor was the appeal to this senti- 
ment without a powerful though temporary effect; and 
among the grievances which were subsequently com- 
plained of by Congress, the Quebec Bill, and the exposure 
of the Colonies to the contagion of Roman Catholic doc- 
trines, were not forgotten. It was, however, a short 
lived and partial excitement, and its temporary character 
illustrates most strongly the destitution of the cause of 
the Revolution of the least tinge of sectarian feeling. 

The cause of the patriots was not the cause of any 
sect, and thoroughly as the principles of Puritanism were 
interwoven with popular sentiment in one portion of the 
country, when that sentiment was mingled in communion 
with that of others, sectarism and religious exclusive* 
ness were found to be irreconcilable with the high and 
more catholic sympathy which bound the Congress and 
its varied constituency together. The last impotent 
attempt to revive this feeling was made by some of the 
loyalists, who endeavoured, with a fierceness that only 
tended to defeat their design, to represent the cause of 
the Colonies as that of a few troublesome schismatics, 
whose end and aim were to restore in these remote re- 
gions the empire of sour intolerance and persecution. In 
a pamphlet published by a clergyman of the Church of 
England at New York, in 1774, a fierce admonition 
against dissent thus concludes: " In a word, no order or 



51 

denomination amongst us would enjoy liberty or safety, 
if subjected to the fiery genius of a New England Repub- 
lican Government, the little finger of which we should 
experience to be heavier than the loins of Parliament. 
This has sometimes chastised us with whips when we 
deserved punishment, but that would torment us with scor- 
pions whether we deserved it or not." Mr. Galloway, a 
loyal partizan of higher credit, described the patriots of 
1774 as an " united faction of Congregationalists, Pres- 
byterians, and Smugglers" and deduces the issue of 
revolt and revolution mainly from the action of the Pres- 
byterian Clergy and Laity as early as 1764, when the pro- 
position of a general synod emanated from a Committee 
appointed for that purpose in Philadelphia. 

A gentleman in New York, on the 31st May, 1774, 
thus wrote to a friend in London — 

"You will have discovered that I am no friend to 
Presbyterians, and that I fix all the blame of these extra- 
ordinary American proceedings upon them. You would 
perhaps think it proper to ask whether no Church of 
England people were among them. Yes, there were, to 
their eternal shame be it spoken, but in general they 
were interested in the motion, either as smugglers of tea 
or as being overburdened with dry goods they knew not 
how to pay for, and would therefore have been glad to 
have a non-importation agreement, or a resolution to pay 



52 

no debts to England. But, sir, these are few in number. 
Believe me the Presbyterians have been the chief and 
principal instruments in all these flaming measures, and 
they always do and ever will act against Government, 
from that restless and turbulent anti-monarchical spirit 
which has always distinguished them everywhere when 
they had, or by any means could assume power, how- 
ever illegally. It is an indubitable fact, that previous to 
and during all these acts of violence committed in the 
Colonies, especially to the Eastward, the Presbyterian 
pulpits groaned with the most wicked, malicious, and in- 
flammatory harangues, pronounced by the favourite 
orators among that sect, spiriting their godly hearers to 
the most violent opposition to Government; persuading 
them that the intention of Government was to rule them 
with a rod of iron, and to make them all slaves; and 
assuring them that if they would rise as one man to 
oppose those arbitrary schemes, God would assist them 
to sweep away every ministerial tool (the amiable name 
these wretches are pleased to bestow on the professors 
of the Church,) from the face of the earth; that now was 
the time to strike, whilst Government at home was afraid 
of them; together with a long string of such seditious stuff 
well calculated to impose on the poor devils their hearers, 
and make them rush into everv kind of extravagance and 



53 

folly, which if I foresee aright, they will have leisure 
enough to be sorry for." 

Thus spoke the bigot loyalist — but the demon of in- 
tolerance was invoked in vain on this side of the Atlantic, 
and it is a glorious comment on such strains of persecu- 
tion that no response was made. All that the invocation 
gained was the acquiescence of zealots in England, and 
the stigma which it fixed on the Establisment in Great 
Britain, in its sanction subsequently given through a ma- 
jority of the Bishops in Parliament, to the employment of 
Hessian and Indian mercenaries to desolate the homes 
of their American Brethren. Here, I repeat, the exor- 
cism failed. How it failed scarcely needs illustration. 

In an original manuscript letter in my possession, a 
Philadelphia gentleman writes to a friend at a distance: 
" The "Virginia Delegates to the Congress have arrived 
in town — they are a fine set of fellows — even the New 
England men are milksops to them.'''' Yet every one of 
these Virginia Delegates was an Episcopalian, attached 
from habit, education and reflection, to its institutions, its 
liturgy, and its theories of discipline and doctrine. On 
the 9th September, 1774, Samuel Adams writes to Dr. 
Warren: " After settling the mode of voting, which is by 
giving each colony an equal voice, it was agreed to open 
the business with prayer. As many of our warmest 
friends are members of thn Church of England, I thought 



54 

it prudent, as well on that as some other accounts, to 
move that the service should be performed by a clergy- 
man of that denomination. Accordingly the lessons of 
the day and prayers were read by the Rev. Doctor Duche, 
who afterwards made a most excellent extemporary 
prayer, by which he discovered himself to be a gentleman 
of sense and piety, and a warm advocate for the religious 
and civil rights of America." 

The history of this eminent divine is well known to 
vou. The opening prayer, for steadiness in resistance 
and fidelity to the cause of an injured people, was heard, 
but not for him, and the blessing which the minister of the 
Gospel invoked for the rebel Congress, descended richly 
on those for whom he prayed. It was a blessing, 
which, like that of the Moabite prophet, could not be re- 
versed. In less than three years, the first Chaplain of 
Congress abandoned the cause of Liberty, and was suc- 
ceeded in his trust by one whose fidelity never faltered. 
This venerable man we all remember. His praise I mean 
not here to pronounce, further than to say that no one 
of his high attributes was more worthy of admiration than 
his strict sense of the duties which are due from the 
citizen to the state. Those duties he steadily but inof- 
fensively performed; giving to the clergy of his beloved 
country, of all denominations, an example too rarely 
imitated, and illustrating by contrast with his conduct 



55 



the inefficacy of those cloistered virtues which seem in the 
effeminate judgment of many to constitute the perfection 
of clerical character. I have before me, through the 
kindness of a member of his family, his narration of those 
times of trial, from which I may, without indelicacy, and 
in the assurance that it will be deeply interesting to all 
who hear me, extract a single passage. It embodies the 
opinion of an American Christian, a Whig of the Revo- 
lution. 

" You know my construction of the scriptural precepts 
on the subject of obedience to civil rulers. It en^-ao-ed 
my most serious consideration, and under the sense of 
my responsibility to God, I am still of opinion that they 
respect the ordinary administration of men in power who 
are not to be resisted from private regards, or for the 
seeking of changes however promising in theory. In a 
mixed Government the constitutional rights of any one 
branch are as much the ordinances of God as those of 
any other. To talk of hereditary right, when the ques- 
tion is of the scnee of the scriptural precepts, is beside 
the mark, for they look no further than to the present 
possessor of the power. The contrary theory lands us 
in despotism, and if any should be reconciled to this by 
the notion of its securing of tranquillity there cannot be a 
greater mistake. Although possessed of these sentiments 
I never beat the ecclesiastical drum. When my coun- 



56 

trymen in general had chosen the dreadful measure of 
forcible resistance, for certainly the spirit was almost 
universal at the time of arming, it was the dictate of 
conscience to take what seemed the right side. I con- 
tinued, as did all of us, to pray for the king, until Sunday 
(inclusively) before the Fourth of July, 1776. Within a 
short time after, I took the oath of allegiance to the 
United States, and have since remained faithful to it. 
My intentions were upright and most seriously weighed. 
I hope they were not in contrariety to my duty."* 

In his published memoirs of the church, he thus mod- 
estly records the singularity of his position at this junc- 
ture: 

" Owing to the circumstance of many able and worthy 
ministers cherishing their allegiance to the king of Great 
Britain, and entertaining conscientious scruples against 
the use of the liturgy, with the omission of the appointed 
prayers for him, they ceased to officiate, and the doors 
of the far greater number of the Episcopal churches were 
closed for years. In this State there was a part of that 
time in which there was, through the whole extent, but 
one resident minister of the church in question: He who 
records the fad? On the Fourth of July, 1776, there is 
an entry made in the minutes of Christ Church and St. 

* MS. letter to Bishop Hobart, Sep. 1, 1819. 



57 

Peters, which is worthy of notice here. It is in these 
words: 

" At a meeting of the vestry at the Rector's, July 4, 
1776. 

Present, Rev. Jacob Duche, Rector. 

Thomas Cuthbert, church warden; Jacob Duche, 
Robert Whyte, Charles Stedman, Edmund Physick, 
James Biddle, Peter Dehaven, James Reynolds, Gerar- 
dus Clarkson, vestrymen. 

Whereas the Honourable Continental Congress have 
resolved to declare the American Colonies to be free and 
independent states; in consequence of which it will be 
proper to omit those petitions in the Liturgy wherein the 
king of Great Britain is prayed for, as inconsistent with 
the said declaration — Therefore, Resolved, that it appears 
to this vestry to be necessary for the peace and well- 
being of the churches to omit the said petitions; and the 
rector and assistant ministers of the united churches are 
requested in the name of the vestry and their constitu- 
ents to omit such petitions as are above mentioned."* 

Thus peculiarly unjust to the American Episcopal 
Church would be any inference drawn from the ravings 



* I am indebted for this extract to the present Rector, Dr. Dorr, whose 
interesting historical account of Christ Church is now in course of pub- 
lication. It would seem that the action of the vestry preceded the pub- 
lic Declaration of Independence. 
8 



58 

of maddened zealots, of wholesale infidelity to the cause 
of the Revolution; while on the other hand, the sweeping 
asseveration that dissent and disloyalty were necessarily 
convertible, is alike unfounded. In a Pastoral letter from 
the Presbyterian Synod of New York and Philadelphia, 
to the congregations under their care, read from the 
pulpits on Thursday, June 29ih, 1775, the day of the 
General Fast, and after the battles of Lexington and 
Bunker Hill, this emphatic language is used. Its author 
was Doctor Witherspoon. 

" In carrying on this important struggle let every op- 
portunity be taken to express your attachment and re- 
spect to our sovereign King George, and to the revolu- 
tion principles by which his august family was seated 
on the throne. We recommend, indeed, not only alle- 
giance to him from duty and principle as the first magis- 
trate of the empire, but esteem and reverence for the 
person of the prince who has merited well of his subjects 
on many accounts, and who has probably been misled 
into the late and present measures by those about him ; 
neither have we any doubt that they themselves have 
been in a great degree deceived by false information 
from interested persons residing in America. It gives 
us great pleasure to say from our own certain knowledge 
of all belonging to our communion, and from the best 
means of information of the far greatest part of all de- 



59 

nominations in this country, that the present opposition 
to the measures of administration does not in the least 
arise from disaffection to the King or a desire of separa- 
tion from the parent state. * * * * We exhort 
you, therefore, to continue in the same disposition, and 
not to suffer oppression or injury itself easily to provoke 
to any thing which may seem to betray contrary senti- 
ments : let it ever appear that you only desire the pre- 
servation and security of those rights which belong to 
you as freemen and Britons, and that reconciliation upon 
these terms is your most ardent desire."* 

Such a letter from the pen of such a man, while it 
shows how little mere sectarism mingled in the conflict, 
detracts nothing from the praise due to the body of the 
Presbyterian Clergy and Laity for their single hearted 
support of the cause of liberty in the Colonics. A Pres- 
byterian loyalist was a thing unheard of. Patriotic cler- 
gymen of the Established Church were exceptions to 
general conduct, for while they were patriots at a sacri- 
fice and in spite of restraints and imaginary obligations 
which many found it impossible to disregard, it was 
natural sympathy and voluntary action that placed the 
Dissenters under the banner of revolutionary redress. 
It is a sober judgment which cannot be questioned, that 

* Witherspoon's Works, Vol. Ill, p. 602. 



60 

had independence and its maintenance depended on the 
approval and ready sanction of the colonial Episcopal 
clergy, misrule and oppression must have become far 
more intense before they would have seen a case of jus- 
tifiable rebellion. The debt of gratitude which indepen- 
dent America owes to the Dissenting Clergy and Laity 
never can be paid. Still, mere sectarism was inoperative 
to sow discord or disunite friends. 

Nor was the destitution of sectarian feeling — the 
abandonment of minor adverse sentiment confined to 
Protestant denominations. No sooner had the excite- 
ment produced by the Quebec Bill and the gloss it was 
made to bear subsided, than the feeling which had inci- 
dentally been aroused against the Roman Catholics dis- 
appeared likewise. During the session of the Congress 
of 1774, General Washington, as appears from his diary, 
attended mass in the old Roman Catholic Church in this 
city;* and as early as 1775, John Carroll and his kins- 
man Charles, both Roman Catholics, and one a Jesuit 
from St. Omers, were selected by Congress for a public 
mission to Canada, which they executed with prompti- 
tude and fidelity, and continued from the beginning to 
the end of the war as true, as ardent and consistent 
patriots as our infant country knew. 

* Sparks's Washington, Vol. II, p. 504. 



61 

So may, so must it always be with us. Whatever 
contests arise — whatever diversities of opinion and ac- 
tion occur in this land of toleration, never let us forget 
the lesson which the birth of the Revolution teaches, the 
example which it gives. Sectarian animosity and intole- 
rance, the reproach of true religion, as they never can 
have permanent influence, should have no abiding place 
here. The clergy of all denominations was then a bro- 
therhood of peace — the pulpit was the source of peace- 
ful and harmonizing influences. So let them always be. 
Let it never be forgotten that when the multitude of the 
oppressed were summoned to the great work of the Re- 
volution, the call was to all alike — Protestant and Catho- 
lic, Churchman and Dissenter were called and came 
together: the Nation's Fast and the Nation's Festival 
were for all alike. 

On the fifth of September the Congress met — and 
here, gentlemen, the fear of having too long occupied 
you admonishes me to pause, leaving to other and abler 
hands to trace anew the record of its glorious acts. It 
too is a topic worthy careful illustration. It is a volume 
of deeper interest than the meagre preface I have at- 
tempted would indicate. When you study it, as I hope 
you will, carefully and philosophically as part and portion 
of our Revolutionary annals, be assured that if you have 
no other recompense you will be repaid by the sense of 



62 

invigorated patriotism which it gives. From those annals 
only will you learn that loyalty is a citizen's as well as 
a subject's virtue, and be made to feel how rich is his 
privilege who learns to love exclusively his country's 
institutions. 



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